Lost Furniture Design Classics: Rocking Chair by Jacob Müller

Amongst the objects Jasper Morrison selected from the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich’s archive for the “MyCollection” section of his Thingness retrospective is/was a prototype for a wooden rocking chair by the Swiss designer and architect Jacob Müller.

A wooden rocking chair from the 1920s. Which belongs in the 2020s.

In the exhibition notes Jasper Morrison states that “the addition of the rocking function is also part of its appeal”

Part?

In as far as 95% can be considered a “part”, then yes.

As we never tire of repeating, in our contemporary world of tablets, smartphones and ever changing work practices we need new typologies of chairs which allow for new types of convenient, comfortable and practical sitting positions.

There is something very, very painful about watching people sitting in a conventional chair at a conventional desk/table using a tablet supported on a pyramid so as to provide a convenient angle for use.

There are more natural sitting positions, positions which not only provide a greater degree of comfort but which allow the user to naturally determine the position of the digital aid rather than contorting themselves to use the aid at a position it defines.

And these new typologies needn’t be newly developed…. they almost certainly exist, lost in some archive or historic exhibition catalogue, waiting to be found…….

Jacob Müller’s rocking chair is one of the best examples we’ve seen.

Low to the ground, Jacob Müller’s rocking chair allows the user to find a natural sitting position while the rocking mechanism allows for continual adjustment and movement. In addition the full length backrest ably supports the body while the long, inclined, seat allows the rocking chair, as Marcel Breuer would no doubt phrase it, to “support the upper leg along its full length without the pressure that arises with a flat seating surface”

And importantly it isn’t a lounge chair. Rocker by Constantin Wortmann & Benjamin Hopf which previously featured in this column offers a similar functionality, but in lounge version, the formal language of Müller’s chair is much more conducive to work: stricter, more formal and less about luxury than pure functionality.

And it is not just a chair for our digital selves; also in the analogue world the Müller rocking chair has obvious advantages as, for example, a reading chair, or in an outdoor version as a lazy garden chair for lazy summer afternoons, lazily enjoying a lively rosé.

Who could possibly object? Honestly, who?

A stupidly simple design, according to Jacob Müller’s grandson the rocking chair was a one-off creation, an object which was a great favourite in the Müller household, and one which apparently served as much as a piece of play/sport equipment as a chair per se: if sadly no one is exactly sure when it was created.¹

What we do know is that Jacob Müller trained as a carpenter in the early 1920s and, and given the dearth of other information, one must assume the rocking chair was a piece created during his apprenticeship; possibly, we would venture to suggest, as some form of study into generic types of furniture, our assumption basing itself on our firmly held belief that Jacob Müller was inspired by some example of rustic, vernacular Swiss Bauernmöbel.

Clearly still needing a little bit of development work before being considered a market ready product, everything, but everything about the rocking chair impresses us.

Except that it only exists in a museum in Zürich.

1. Information supplied in an email from the Collections Department of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich

Rocking Chair by Jacob Müller, as seen at the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich

Rocking Chair by Jacob Müller, as seen at the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich

Rocking Chair by Jacob Müller, as seen at the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich

Rocking Chair by Jacob Müller, as seen at the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich